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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27642305">Long Island Kindness</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/tollie/pseuds/tollie'>tollie</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Supernatural</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Ending, Bisexual Dean Winchester, Everybody Lives, Finale Did Not Happen, First Kiss, Fix-It, Gay Castiel (Supernatural), M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Reunions</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 05:33:42</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,316</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27642305</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/tollie/pseuds/tollie</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean decides to quit hunting for good, and gets everything he wants instead.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Castiel/Dean Winchester</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>48</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Long Island Kindness</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Me @ the finale:Go girl give us nothing</p>
<p>For real though this is my flabbergasted attempt to process and try to write a better ending (lmao not hard) and just.... heal... heal my wounded gay soul... Hope u don't hate it!</p>
<p>Title a reference to Sufjan Stevens "John My Beloved"</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“This is it, man,” Dean said. He shook his head, sipping at the cup of black coffee cradled in his hands.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sam looked up from his laptop – their morning routine: wake up, get dressed, make the bed. Sit at the map table, open up the laptops, and start looking for cases. But Dean was just sitting, drinking coffee. His laptop was closed, pushed off to the side. “This is what?” Sam asked, caution in his voice.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“The last hunt.” Dean sipped the coffee again, savoring the bitter taste and the burn of hot liquid in his throat. “I’m out of the life.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sam’s eyebrows shot up. “You serious?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Hell fucking yes.” Dean met his brother’s eyes, his words stony and final.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sam cleared his throat. “What, uh, what brought this on?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dean shook his head. He was struggling to say something, his mouth opening and closing a few times. Sam’s fingers hovered over the laptop’s keys, waiting patiently for Dean to speak, not wanting to make a sound.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Look,” Dean said after a moment. “I haven’t told you everything. About Cas.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sam shut his laptop and shoved it aside.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“When the Empty took him, he, uh--” Dean’s lower lip quivered a bit, and his eyes misted over. “He said something to me. A lot of things, really, but…” He trailed off again. He put down the coffee cup and rubbed his temples with his fingertips.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“It’s ok,” Sam said. “Take your time.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dean took a deep breath, then nodded, wiping a tear away. “He said he loved me, man. And I think that he really meant it.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sam’s brows knitted together. He leaned closer speaking evenly and quietly. “Of course he loved you, Dean, he –”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dean’s eyes bored into his, and Sam understood.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“He also said that… he said he wanted something he knew he could never have,” he continued. “It reminded me of something… something Pamela said, in my head, when Michael was running the show. She said, ‘You always want what you can’t have,’ and that got me thinking.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sam nodded, not speaking.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What if I can have it? What if I can just stop all this, work for the life I really want?” Tears had begun to spill from Dean’s eyes. “I mean hell, any hunter worth their salt would pay buckets for any one of the trinkets we’ve got in this bunker. I can make myself the owner of some honkey-tonk dive bar somewhere. I can live the life Lee had, minus the blood-sucking pet. Go legit, man.” Dean’s face was almost pleading, as if waiting for Sam to give his blessing.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sam smiled. “That’s great, Dean. It really is.” There was silence for a moment, then Sam cleared his throat. “But – uh – what about Cas?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dean wiped his face, draining the last dregs of his coffee. “I’m trying to focus on what I can control, Sammy.” He stood up, pulling his jacket over his shoulders. “For years, man, we have been surrounded by all these major players. But I’m just a guy. I can’t bring him back. You don’t think I’ve prayed to him? You don’t think I’ve –”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sam stood up, reaching out toward his brother, but Dean turned away. “I know you have, Dean.” He had heard his brother’s sobbing prayers every night since Castiel had been taken.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’m going to turn this thing around,” Dean said. “This life, I mean. Look, we defeated Chuck, right? We beat the Biggest Bad there is – God, the Darkness, all of it. We deserve – you deserve to, and I deserve to make things right for myself for a change.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>###</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The bar was a bit of a fixer upper. Dean was mostly sleeping in the Impala, fixing it up on his own or calling on Sam for back up here and there – even though he was renting out a cheap motel room nearby. Going legit meant he couldn’t burn through one credit card after another on the mid-tier rooms, so he wound up someplace that reminded him more of his childhood than anything else. Still, it was change. Change was good.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Still, it was coming along. The inside was mostly refurbished at this point, and all that remained was the shabby outside, a bit of landscaping, some decorating… okay, so it still required a lot.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>But Dean had rebuilt the Impala from the ground up more times than he could count. No sweat. Building something, creating with his hands – it was something he could do. Something he could control. It felt right, felt good.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He had decided to call the place Mary’s. Cliche, even for him, but he thought she would have loved it.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The day the big neon sign was set to go up, Dean felt a peculiar prickle on his scalp. The hair on the back of his neck stood up – but not <em>ghost</em>-stood up. It felt… warmer. Almost like pulling on a fuzzy sweater right from the dryer.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He dialed Sam, who sounded sleepy on the phone. “Hey Dean,” he said (“Hey Dean!” called Eileen from the background).</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dean couldn’t contain his strange, nervous energy. “Sammy! You and Eileen should head on out here. We’re lighting up the sign today. Big day, Sam!”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You sound happy,” Sam said.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dean’s smile faltered a bit. For the first time in a long time, he was almost happy. He was <em>fulfilled</em>, at the very least. That was something he hadn’t been, hadn’t really been, in a long time. “Big day,” Dean repeated. “So, you coming?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sam answered in the affirmative, but Dean barely heard him.</p>
<p><br/>What he heard was the flap of angel wings behind him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Hello, Dean.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He whipped around. The phone clattered to the floor. There he was, and Dean blinked, not trusting his eyes – he literally pinched himself, trying to prove that it wasn’t a dream.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Cas?” He took a step forward. Castiel had already nearly closed the space between them. “How?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Jack,” Cas said. He gave a small, proud smile, which faded as he examined Dean’s face.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Cas, I –” Dean stood, mouth, slack, for a moment, then threw his arms around the angel, pulling him close. “I thought you were never coming back.” Castiel held him tightly. He felt a warm splash hit the back of his neck. Tears flowed freely down Dean’s face.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” Castiel said, “but I always come back for you.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dean pulled back, his fingers grasping the back of Cas’s neck. “I didn’t have time to tell you, Cas, I –”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Faintly, he caught Sam’s voice still coming from the cell phone on the ground, growing frantic. “Dean! Dean, what’s going on?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dean withdrew from Castiel, picking up the phone. “It’s good news, Sammy. Good news! It’s Cas!”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Cas?” Dean could almost hear Sam’s eyebrows furrowing over the phone. “But, h--”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“We’ll explain it when you get here, okay? Get your ass over here!” Dean’s smile was just as audible over the airwaves. “Party at Mary’s tonight!”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He hung up the phone, and turned back to Castiel.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What were you saying?” Cas asked.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dean reached out, grasping one of Cas’s hands. “If what you wanted was this,” he said, placing the other man’s large, square hand over his own heart, “you can have it, Cas.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Castiel had the audacity to look confused. “Dean?” The name was a question. Dean answered with a slight nod. Eyes fluttering closed, he closed the distance between them completely, their lips crushing together, soft yet urgent.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Neither wanted to break the kiss – but Dean pulled back after a few, sweet moments, examining Castiel’s face before giving a satisfied smirk. “The sign guys will be here in an hour,” he said. “Sammy will be here in forty five minutes.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Cas looked genuinely puzzled this time. Dean raised his eyebrows. “Remember the pizza man?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Realization dawned on Castiel’s face, and he reached up to loosen his tie.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>END.</p>
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